'Hong Kong Through Australian Eyes' photographic exhibition opens next week
(Hong Kong, 13 Oct 2021) – Hong Kong, as seen by four Australian photographers living in the city, is the subject of a new exhibition: 'Hong Kong Through Australian Eyes’, showing at the Fringe Club in Central during October.
The exhibition features a collection of photographs by Simon Fuller, Palani Mohan, Isaac Lawrence, and Jayne Russell – each examining their own connection to Hong Kong and the features which make the city in which they live and work special.
Isaac Lawrence says Hong Kong is “a culturally rich city that is always offering new ways to see it.”
For Palani Mohan, who has published several books of photography, including “Wind Water” about Hong Kong, the exhibition is a reflection on more than 10 years of being a resident, including a period based on a boat in Aberdeen: “The colours, sounds and chi of the city came right up to our front door,” says Mohan, “it was a wonderful gift.”
Simon Fuller, a video producer, found the city to be an “extraordinary canvas”, driving him to explore its colours and stories through still photography. Hong Kong Through Australia Eyes is his second public exhibition following “Ding Ding”, a collection of photographs capturing Hong Kong’s iconic trams.
Australian Consul-General, Elizabeth Ward, says the collection of photographs is just a small sample of the ways in which Australians feel connected to Hong Kong, “this is a connection of long-standing, dating back more than 200 years when the first Cantonese-speaking migrants ventured south seeking new opportunities.”
“Since then, the movement of people in both directions has forged deep people-to-people links between our communities”.
Jayne Russell, who worked as a news photographer in London’s Fleet Street, spent time recording the lives of Hong Kong’s ‘boat people’, concerned that “their stories and unwritten history will die with them”.
From insights of Hong Kong’s Tanka people, to signature neon signs, bamboo scaffolding, and the colourful blur of dragon boat racing, the photographers seek to create an understanding of how Australians feel connected to Hong Kong through the activities and explorations of daily life.
Organised by the Australian Consulate-General, Hong Kong Through Australian Eyes is free to attend and will be on display at the Anita Chan Lai-ling Gallery of the Fringe Club from 22-29 October 2021.
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